


Stars and Stripe

by Eremji (handsfullofdust)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Sex, Blowjobs, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Even the Title is In on It, Excessive Use of Penis Metaphors, First Time, Glory Holes, Identity Porn, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rimming, Size Kink, Steve Rogers' Huge Johnson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 12:44:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15729660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handsfullofdust/pseuds/Eremji
Summary: Bucky Barnes gets cold at night like every other man on the front, so when he finds himself trapped in a bathroom stall with the prospect of getting down on his knees for Captain America, he doesn't mind all that much.There’s an obscene hole in the wall between the endmost stall and its neighbor. He touches the edges of it, sanded smooth, and stares dumbly when he realizes that it must not be a rumor at all.





	Stars and Stripe

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all can all blame [eidheann](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidheann/profile) for encouraging this one. Special thanks for ~~laughing at me~~ betaing this monster, the majority of which was pretty much written in a single weekend.
> 
> For [B_nes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_nes/profile), who didn't read this, but texted me a configuration of emojis in the shape of a dick for inspiration.
> 
> Anonymous commenting is disabled, but if you don't have an Ao3 account and would like to get in touch with me, I can also be reached on [Tumblr](https://eremji.tumblr.com/) and [Pillowfort](https://pillowfort.io/Eremji) (if you have closed beta access).
> 
> As always, don't forget to check the warnings. I try to tag thoughtfully, but if you come across anything major you think I should have warned for, please let me know!

“What sticks to memory, often, are those odd little fragments that have no beginning and no end…”  
– Tim O’Brien ‘ _The Things They Carried’_  


*

 

Bucky’s been thinking about it for weeks.  
  
He's been off the front for nearly a month, pulled back the RAF at Alconbury for additional specialist training; they clawed him back after he made his Sergeant’s chevrons. It’s a promotion he can't entirely be grateful for, because it came from his predecessor blundering over a landmine while taking a piss in the middle of the night. Still, he’s off the front and back in civilized country, where you can get a beer and a shower without having to kill someone for it. There aren’t many creature comforts to be found in the trenches and he’s grateful for a warm bed in the dormitories; autumn has a strangling grip on the countryside, winter close on its heels.  
  
He’s not sure what drives him into the disused communal toilets, except maybe a morbid curiosity and a choking desperation for warm skin. Bucky’s never considered himself much into other men, not when he’s never had trouble finding a pretty lady willing to dance with him. But, as he’s standing in the unlit toilet cubicle with his skin still crawling from a month-old memory of mortars in the night, he can see how any port in a storm might be tempting. There’s a rumor going round the base that a fella can get his cock sucked if he waits in one of the latrine stalls, that some of the more hard up fellas would give a little head just to get a taste.  
  
There’s an obscene hole in the wall between the endmost stall and its neighbor. He touches the edges of it, sanded smooth, and stares dumbly when he realizes that it must not be a rumor at all.  
  
“Come on, Barnes, pull yourself together,” he mutters beneath his breath and reaches for the door.  
  
He hesitates long enough that footsteps pass the floor, and Bucky freezes, hand on the latch. Just like that, his window for retreat evaporates, so he swiftly backs away, so his boots aren't visible from the outside.  
  
The door of the other stall rattles, then slams shut with considerable force. He tenses, licking his lips, and tries to stay quiet. It could be anybody from a green airman shipped over just after boot, or maybe one of the French commandants rotating back for leave. Bucky’s not sure it matters if they’re there for the same reason he is – except if they’re not, he could get hauled off to spend the rest of his short enlistment in a jail cell.  
  
The stall next to his is quiet for a time, except for the faint rasp of the other man’s breathing, then comes a tentatively whispered, “Is someone there?”  
  
Bucky cranes his neck to try to see who’s hiding in the stall next to his. All he gets is a glimpse of muscular thigh and a splash of color that could only be one person in the whole damn military.  
  
Jesus Christ and Mother Mary.  
  
Bucky licks his lips, mouth dry, and the comics weren't an exaggeration – the fella really is built like a slab of beef. Big guy like him could do a real bad number on Bucky in the wrong situation, but Bucky’s seen the press photos splashed across the newspapers in London. Captain America’s not a fighting man. He ain't nothing but a propaganda mouthpiece in the United States war machine. They probably picked him because he was too soft and stupid to say no.  
  
If the rumors are true, Cap’s a goody two shoes, so Bucky might as well make him squirm while he has the opportunity. If not for himself, then for the boys out front that the papers should be writing about.  
  
“Yeah, I’m here,” Bucky says, barely an exhaled whisper of acknowledgement. A plan resolves itself in his brain, and he commits to it. “So, you want me to suck your cock or not?”  
  
“ _What_?” Captain America asks, and boy can Bucky just imagine how bright red he must be. “What do you think you’re trying to pull?”  
  
“Well,” Bucky drawls, even though he feels like he’s got a whole herd of buffalo stampeding through his chest. “You pull that big piece of yours out and shove it through the hole –” Bucky wiggles his fingers to demonstrate “– and I get down on my knees and let you fuck my mouth.”  
  
“I’m not here for –” There’s a pause, which Bucky reads as mortified. The slightly strangled, “Fellas do that?” confirms.  
  
“Sure,” Bucky says, and leans heavily against the divider. It creaks a little under his weight, but he presses himself up against the wood all the same, speaking low and in confidence like he’s trying to convince a gal to go on a date with him. “Ain’t you ever tried it?”  
  
“Not that it's any of your business,” Cap says, in tones that Bucky thinks are excessively prissy, but that’s probably the kind of fella they wanted for a gig that involves schmoozing with senators and wearing excessively tight pants. “But – no, I haven’t.”  
  
“Surely there are guys and gals throwing themselves on their swords to grapple with the famous Captain America?” Bucky cajoles. Some of the Army guys are worse gossips than the Church knitting circles back in Brooklyn; maybe if Bucky gets a good story out of it he can trade it for a few cigarettes.  
  
“Not so much as you’d think,” Cap says. He sounds irritated at that and the stall latch abruptly rattles. “Thanks, but no thanks. I just came here for a few minutes of peace and quiet. I gotta get back to work.”  
  
Bucky presses his fingers back through the hole. “Not even gonna try it out?”  
  
There's a long, pause, long enough for Bucky to feel like he might have bagged himself a glimpse at Captain America’s rifle. Then, “I really don't think I should.”  
  
It sends a little thrill through him that Bucky can't quite account for. He’s never really been interested all that much in fellas, but he’s looked – and done more than that, a time or two, sure, back before Steve moved in and he picked up a second, then third, job. Bucky’s not so shy and uptight he can't admit to some genuine curiosity, and it’s not like he and the Catholic church are still on speaking terms.  
  
Besides, it's not so easy as to find a nice gal to give him the time of day out in the field, even just for a bit of impolite company.  
  
He figures another fella in the service might be a little more flexible about the details. It ain't like Bucky was a hound back before he shipped off, but his gear is cold comfort at night when Brooklyn was full of dancing and drinks and bickering with Steve about the best way to hang the laundry.  
  
So he asks, “You don't think you should, or you don't want to?”  
  
“It's not appropriate.” Another heavy pause follows, then, a bit hesitantly, “I don't know why you’d want to.”  
  
That really does it for Bucky, the determined and shy way Cap is declining. The fella seems to be trying so hard to be polite, and Bucky’s had all his own soft, civilized edges worn a little sharp. He drops the act and sinks to his knees, so he can look through the hole up at the broad, muscular line of Cap’s body. “Let me take the edge off for you? You can close your eyes and think of whoever you want to.”  
  
Cap shifts his weight, and Bucky can hear the frown when he says, “Wouldn’t this be easier if you came over here?”  
  
“The anonymity is half the fun,” Bucky lies, his mouth near the hole so Cap can get a preview of the goods. “Besides, they can kick you off the force for sodomy, and I ain't ready to be trade in my Army paycheck for a jumpsuit and a chain gang, are you?”  
  
“This is a really bad idea,” Cap says, and the handle rattles again. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to find someone else.”  
  
“Wait,” Bucky says. He tries to get a better look, but the stalls are narrow, and Cap is too tall for Bucky to make out his face. “I go back to the front in a few weeks, and there’s no telling if I’ll get another chance to feel good again.”  
  
“You don't have to run a game on me,” Cap says, audibly irritated. “You could’ve just said please.”  
  
“Then –” Bucky stops, because he’s surprising himself. This was just supposed to be a lark, but now he’s committed to it, he’s got an itch for it that he can't well define. Maybe the guy reminds him a little bit of Steve, which is a lot for Bucky to think about, because he never got down on his knees for his best pal.  
  
He doesn't know if he’d have said no if Steve had ever asked, though. And that revelation lights a searing bonfire in his belly, because he’s probably never going to get the chance to be best pals with anyone again, much less explore that desperate disaster of an idea.  
  
“Then what?” Cap prompts.  
  
“Well, if you want me to ask: please?” Bucky shifts on his knees, runs his fingers around the edge of the hole. He isn’t sure what men like, but if Cap is anything like the rest of the fucks in Bucky’s unit, promise of a warm suck turns plenty of them a little mercenary. “Let me suck you, pal?”  
  
“Jesus,” Cap whispers, an explosive exhalation, and Bucky can immediately hear the rustle of clothing. “Fine, okay?”  
  
Bucky gets an amazing show, watching the slow unveiling of all that pink skin. Cap’s real pretty down below, with two perfect balls covered in soft-looking, strawberry blonde curls and a thick, heavy cock that's half-hard and beautifully red at the tip. A little shiver goes down his spine, and he pushes himself up against the divider, shocked at the way his own cock thickens in response to another man’s arousal.  
  
“Let me touch it?” Bucky asks. It's been months since he’s had a hand other than his own anywhere on his body that wasn't bent to violence or bandaging him up.  
  
“Are you sure?” Cap asks. “I can still go.”  
  
“C’mere,” Bucky beckons, and in shuffling little steps, Captain America, bastion of freedom, truth, and justice, pushes his thick cock through the hole and right into the space beside Bucky’s mouth. The lower curve of the opening is big enough that his balls push through, obscene, the whole transaction reduced to soft skin, hard flesh, and Bucky’s mouth.  
  
“This is awkwar – _oh_.” The divider shudders with the weight of that big body when Bucky wraps his hand around the girth of it. And God is it warm in Bucky’s calloused hand, Cap's skin probably the softest thing he’s felt since he was back home. “Oh, oh God.”  
  
“Relax,” Bucky says, soothing, and gives Cap’s cock a good, firm pump, just for the sheer thrill of feeling that strong body shudder under his grip. “I've got you.”  
  
Bucky licks his thumb and rubs it in tight circles under the head of Cap’s cock, letting the soft, breathy gasp that Cap produces wash over him. It makes him feel warm all over, so he loosens the top few buttons of his shirt and replaces his fingers with his mouth.  
  
Cap’s cock is too long to get all the way in without gagging on it, and Bucky’s never played seriously for the other team before, so he clumsily works his tongue along the underside of the salty, silky girth. He must hit something good, because Cap groans louder and claps both big hands over the top of the divider like he’s hanging on for dear life. Bucky seals his mouth around the head and is rewarded with a slick burst of precome and an involuntary thrust that drives the head of his cock over the back of Bucky’s tongue.  
  
“Sorry,” Cap hisses. “I’ve never really –”  
  
Bucky makes an obscene noise as he pulls off, surprised. “Not ever?”  
  
“Well, the USO girls got a little handsy a few times, but I’m not really –” Cap makes an incoherent sound that crawls right into Bucky’s brain and squeezes.  
  
“Into dames?” Bucky asks, giving the tip a lick just to feel the way the big body on the other side of the wall shudders.  
  
“ _No_. I am. I’m just –” there’s a shy pause, which Bucky finds oddly charming, despite the fact he’s down on his knees in a latrine with the taste of Captain America's cock on his tongue. “I’m just not used to the attention.”  
  
“Well, good time as any to practice getting some.” Bucky strokes the length of him up and down, and God does he have a vicious erection of his own, straining the flies of his pants. He thinks about unbuttoning but hesitates – he likes being wound up like this, rock hard and aching, like maybe he can carry that rush of pleasure and adrenaline around with him for a while once he’s back out in the field. “God, how do they hide this fucking bazooka in those tights of yours?”  
  
For a second, he sorely regrets the wall separating them. It’d be as good as anything to get straddled – or, Hell, he’d be willing to let a big brute like Cap have a little real estate between his knees, even with the monster weapon that’s making his jaw ache. Bucky pushes down as far as he can go; there’s a trick of it, he’s sure, he’s heard more than one story of fellas getting the whole thing in there, but maybe there’s just too much for him to take.  
  
He wraps his hand around the base of Cap’s cock and closes his eyes, because Cap makes a sound that lands somewhere between a grunt and a moan. Bucky tries to imagine what he might look like, reassembling a mental image of the strong jaw and the broad shoulders from the papers and newsreels. A soft, expressive mouth, probably a set of blue eyes that –  
  
Bucky groans and pushes his hand against his own cock, unrelentingly hard and still trapped in the confines of his pants. He rubs at himself through his clothes and pulls off Cap’s cock just for a second, says, “God, I’d let you fuck me with this thing,” and dives back in with single-minded intensity. He wants Cap’s knees to give out, for him to lose control, spill over into Bucky, because Bucky’s the one in charge here.  
  
Cap swears and the wood divider creaks under his grip, jerking forward. Bucky’s ready for this time and takes him, swallowing as the slippery, salty head of Cap’s cock pushes past his tongue and nudges the back of his throat. He holds Cap there until he can't take any more and pulls back to catch his breath.  
  
“That – that feels amazing,” Cap says, voice nothing but a rumble, dropped down into a chesty thrum that echoes throughout the empty building. “Wish I could watch you do that.”  
  
Hoarse from having a cock shoved into his throat – and ain't that far more fucking thrilling than it has any right to be – Bucky just hums in assent.  
  
Cap lasts longer than Bucky expects, making soft little sounds of pleasure, almost sweet. Bucky thinks imagining someone else might be doing the fella a disservice, so he fixes himself to cataloging the obscene slide of skin over his tongue, the clean male scent, the weight of Cap’s balls in Bucky’s palm. It feels good to be on his knees, to have a direct line on someone’s pleasure, to think that maybe he’ll be remembered for making a man feel good.  
  
Bucky braces himself against the wall when Cap starts to go off, head down, working him hard with his mouth and tongue, until he realizes the groans he hears are his own. He sucks hard, lapping at the thick, sticky mess that floods his mouth, fills him up as fast as he can swallow it down, and if he was on the fence about making time with fellas before, he’s not now. Maybe he’s just got it in him to be hungry for the power of it, greedy and on his knees with a stranger under his thumb, but he keeps going until Cap pulls away.  
  
It’s quiet except for their breathing; Bucky low and shaky through his nostrils, and Cap like a race horse that’s been run hard. He can hear Cap fumbling with his clothing, and Bucky rocks back on his heels, sliding down until his shoulders are pressed into the wall behind him. The absurdity of the situation strikes him all at once, right in the belly, and bubbles up from below until Bucky’s overcome with laughter.  
  
The door to Cap’s stall creaks open. Low, barely a whisper, Cap asks, “Are you okay in there?”  
  
“I’m fine,” Bucky says, but he feels like he’s coming apart, like he’s gonna shake loose from his bones with the urge to wrap his fingers around himself or let this strange man do it for him. It’s ridiculous, really, because he doesn’t even know the guy, hasn’t even made the kind of requisite small talk even a quick date gets, and he’s got the taste of the man on his tongue. “You should go –”  
  
“Maybe we should –” A long, heavy pause. “Maybe you’d want to come back to my room?”  
  
“I gotta get back,” Bucky lies. Through the gap in the stall door, he can see one of Cap’s broad shoulders, the strong sweep of his back. The urge to surrender, to see more of that silky cream skin, creeps into his bones like the cold in winter. He’s gonna be out in the dark again soon and, more and more, he feels himself giving in to the offer of comfort. “I think it’s best if you go.”  
  
“I should – I should at least know your name,” Cap says. “I feel real bad, taking advantage.”  
  
“Well, yeah, okay.” Bucky pushes himself to his feet, his head full of shocky want, and unlatches the handle.  
  
Wide-eyed and impossibly handsome, Steve Rogers’ face peers down at him with an expression of dawning shock and recognition. “ _Bucky_?”  


*

 

When Bucky comes to in the infirmary, Steve is sitting with his idiotic mask in both hands, wringing it like a dishrag, a look of intense self-flagellation plastered to his face that more than solidifies the reality that this isn’t some insane battle-fatigue-induced hallucination.  
  
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, looking up from his fretting, and Bucky isn’t sure whether he feels like he’s going to launch himself at Steve or if he’s about to burst into flames from the sheer embarrassment of having his best pal shoot a load down his throat.  
  
“Me?” He seems to be all in one piece, but here Steve is looking like he is, and Bucky isn’t sure he can trust his eyes. Bucky wants to grab Steve by his stupid uniform and shake him, demand he tell the truth, but there isn’t much Bucky can do against the overwhelming amount of evidence that the man in front of him is Steve Rogers, from his crooked beak to the _aw-shucks_ hunch of his shoulders. “What about you? What the hell, Steve?”  
  
Steve shifts his bulk, which is a considerable feat, considering there’s not much room for him in the narrow infirmary chair in the first place. “I joined up with an Army experiment and, well, here I am.”  
  
“So you get yourself zapped by some bullshit science fiction lasers and now you’re cruising for blowjobs in Army bathrooms?” Bucky hisses. The only thing saving him from chinning Steve out of sheer outrage is the fact it’d probably hurt him more than it hurt Steve. He thinks he’s taking it fairly well, considering.  
  
“It wasn’t lasers. You are _such_ an asshole,” Steve despairs, red all over, and arousal lurches abruptly into the foreground, because Bucky can’t think of anything except the gasping, shuddering way Steve – holy fuck, _Steve_ , who looks like a science experiment gone very, very right – came in his mouth, thick and sticky and –  
  
“You don’t get to call me an asshole,” Bucky says hotly, hard as a fucking slab of concrete in his pants, equally aroused and angry, because this is just the kind of idiotic thing Steve would get himself into without Bucky around, “when you’re the one who signed up to let some jackoff experiment on you so you could be the first in line to catch a bullet.”  
  
Steve starts to get to his feet, but Bucky gives him a quelling glower, so Steve settles for trying to explain, “It ain’t like that, Buck –”  
  
“Then tell me. What _is_ it like? You been touring since – Jesus, Stevie, you’ve been _Captain America_ and you didn’t even write me?” Bucky puts his arms on the side of the bed and shoves himself upright, keeping the sheets piled over his lap because there’s only so much he can take.  
  
Steve looks him up and down, swallowing hard, then away. “I didn’t exactly have liberty. It’s a matter of national security.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t have the energy to keep his temper up. He’s a little shaky from the fall, but that could just as easily be because most of his blood isn’t in the right head. “Jesus, _Stevie_ , I thought you were safe.”  
  
Steve looks outraged, and there he is, intimately recognizable, except with bigger hands and shoulders that’d shame a whole team of oxen. He gets to his feet, and Bucky has to look _up_. “I can leave, if you’re gonna go implying I don’t have as much right to serve my country as you do.”  
  
“You stubborn little bastard,” Bucky says, rising to his feet. “It ain’t always about you.”  
  
“Then what’s it about?” Steve snaps, looking down at Bucky. And God is he so damn _tall._  
  
“Maybe it’s about _me_ for once,” Bucky says, and suddenly he ain’t so mad any more. It’s not so funny, not so absurd. He reaches out to give Steve a shove but ends up with his hand clutching around Steve’s bicep, heart pounding in his throat. “Maybe it’s about the only reason I could get through some days is I knew you were safe.”  
  
Steve’s expression crumples. Bucky feels a little bit like he’s kicked a dog, so he staggers closer and ends up pushed up against him, both hands gripping Steve’s uniform, unsure of how to apologize for not being strong enough to stay steady for Steve.  
  
“Buck,” Steve says, soft, sweet, and then Bucky is being kissed, careful and heart-wrenching. The only shocking thing about it is how long it took him to realize he wanted Steve’s mouth on his all along.  
  
He feels his knees give out first, and Steve is there, holding him up. Bucky makes a choked, desperate sound into Steve’s mouth and yanks at him, crushing them together, until all Bucky can think about is the plush slip of Steve’s tongue along his lower lip. Bucky’s mouth opens for Steve, and it's like he’s being held against a wall of muscle, a hand between their bodies, and it’s all blindingly fast and completely overwhelming.  
  
Steve, he’s got Steve. Steve with big lungs, and big shoulders, and a shiny new strangeness to him that Bucky doesn’t try to fight, because Steve can _breathe_ , and Steve can fight, and Steve can hold Bucky up like Bucky don’t weigh nothing and never has.  
  
And Bucky is happy, happy for one bright, impossible spot, in the middle of a horrible life filled with poverty and air raid sirens and men in the scope of his rifle. Steve is here, alive and healthy and sculpted so marvelously on the outside that maybe the rest of the world has a shot of gleaning what Bucky knows about Steve – and has from the day they met.  
  
“Steve.” Bucky breaks away, trying to put some distance where there never was any in the first place, because Bucky doesn't want to ruin this for Steve. He’s got a good shot at a life now. A wife and kids and a little house after the war, not like Bucky. “Stevie, you’re all mixed up.”  
  
“Are you ever gonna quit telling me how I should feel, Buck?” Steve asks, and he moves his bulk towards Bucky like he’s finally remembered he has it. He shifts Bucky back against the bed and puts a big thigh between Bucky’s legs. “I’m getting real tired of people telling me what I should want.”  
  
“I don’t –” Bucky swallows hard, mouth dry. “What – what _do_ you want, pal?  
  
Bending his head down, he says, real sweet, “This was good before, right?” His lips graze Bucky’s ear, and Steve puts his broad hands on Bucky’s knees, then slides his palms up the length of Bucky’s thighs.  
  
There’s the big question, the crux of the matter. At the heart of it, something in Bucky has always burned bright for Steve, an answering recognition he can’t deny. Bucky can remember crouching at Steve’s bedside, praying to a God he don’t believe in just for Steve to take one more breath. Now Steve’s stood in front of him big and whole and sucking air into his new military issue lungs and Bucky doesn’t know what to do with his hands for once in his life.  
  
“Yeah, Stevie, that’s real good,” Bucky surrenders. He searches Steve’s face, doesn’t find pity or disgust, only naked hope and desire. “I always knew you were gonna be the end of me.”  
  
Bucky reaches up and pulls Steve’s head the rest of the way down, kissing him slow, until his heart feels like it's gonna burst. Steve is gentle with him, a hand in Bucky’s hair, the other hauling Bucky forward until they’re hip to hip and he can feel how damn hard Steve is for him –  
  
Steve yanks away abruptly, red-faced, and puts a healthy amount of distance between them just as the clattering footsteps of the head nurse stop outside the exam room. He trips over a garbage bin, stumbling backwards like he doesn’t quite know how to move his bulk yet, and nearly knocks a jar of cotton swabs off the supply counter.  
  
A prim-looking woman of about sixty enters, not even bothering to look up from her charts. Her name tag reads _Ellis_ , but she doesn't introduce herself. Bucky pulls the sheets over his lap. Steve looks positively cherubic, which only makes him look hellishly guilty to Bucky's discerning eye, because it’s the exact same look he wore every single time the two of them got hauled in to see the Mother Superior for something that was always more Steve’s fault than Bucky’s.  
  
Bucky tries desperately not to laugh.  
  
“Sergeant Barnes, you appear to be in fine health,” she says, “but I’m going to recommend a day of leave so we can be certain.” She notices Steve and turns, surprised, pursing her lips. “Private Rogers. What are you still doing here?”  
  
Bucky raises both eyebrows and mouths _private?_ to Steve, who does something complicated with his eyebrows. They’ve juiced him up and put him out to do tours like a slab of beef and they didn't even promote him. Bucky isn’t real sure whether it’s funny or outrageous.  
  
“Sorry if I'm taking up room, ma'am. It's just that Bucky and I been friends since we went to St. Mary’s together, and, well, I was really worried about him.” Steve shifts his weight from one foot to another and Bucky is shocked at how convincingly shame-faced Steve manages to look. Bucky might believe the polite _sorry to be a bother ma’am_ act if he’d never known Steve a minute of his life.  
  
“We go way back,” Bucky agrees easily, swinging his legs. And for half a second it’s just like they’re ten, fifteen, twenty again, talking their way out of writing lines, doing drudgery, and time in the clink for brawling bullies behind the old cinema. “Best of pals, really. I was so shocked to see him, he just gave me a bit of a fright.”  
  
Nurse Ellis’ mouth slants downward, distinctly unmoved by their friendship. “Visiting hours are over. Fortunately, I’ve got Sergeant Barnes’ discharge papers here, so do see to it that he doesn't injure himself further on the way back to his dormitory?”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Steve says, and looks at Bucky with a carefully earnest expression. “I’ll be sure he doesn’t get out of bed.”  
  
Bucky covers his laughter with a cough, and Nurse Ellis’ scowl deepens. “Swear on my gran’s grave I’ll take it real easy.”  
  
Steve adds, “I don’t think it’ll be very hard, the state he’s in.” He puts his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, companionable. “I think I can handle him.”  
  
For a moment, Bucky thinks they’ve been made, but she just says, “Sign here, Sergeant,” no doubt in possession of a long list of better things to do than deal with the two of them. She offers a clipboard, and Bucky scrawls his signature at the bottom of the page.  


*

 

They go back to Steve’s instead, where Bucky gets a shower and washes the smell of the infirmary and the day’s training off him. Steve has a private room, which is just about the only perk that being Captain America seems to afford him. That, and the way Steve tells it, a bunch of USO girls who are happy enough to protect his privacy if he rousts off unsavory types when they try to get too fresh.  
  
Steve’s changed into a pair of trousers and a buttoned-up uniform shirt, reading pensively through reports when Bucky returns. Bucky can only stare at him, rattled, because no wonder they chose him to put on the uniform and sell war bonds; Bucky’s pretty sure that if Steve had come at him like that, his top button popped and his creamy throat exposed, and with his hair done up and his big blue eyes and earnest _please sirs_ , Bucky would’ve given him the clothes right off his back. The man in front of him is so clearly a weapon that it’s no wonder he feels good in Bucky’s hands.  
  
Bucky slumps onto Steve’s bed in nothing but his towel, warm and loose from the hot water, and asks, “You always get this kind of royal treatment?”  
  
“Not really,” Steve admits. “Most of the time I just get stuck on a cot behind a folding screen in the ladies’ dressing room.”  
  
“Surprised you ain’t shacked up with one,” Bucky says, and he really is, because the way Steve looks, hale and whole and solid as a rock, ain't a dame can miss the power he’s packing. Steve’s always had his baby blues, his soft hair, his pink mouth, but now Bucky’s got his wish -- that the rest of the world would find some way to notice Steve Rogers like Bucky’s always noticed him.  
  
Steve looks up and his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. “The girls are real nice, but I ain't interested in them.”  
  
“Yeah?” Bucky asks, leaning back invitingly and spreading his legs. Fear lances up his spine, because this is Steve he’s alone with, not some quick mystery fuck, and it feels like one wrong push could send everything they have careening over the edge. He gives Steve a pointed once-over, letting his gaze linger. “Not even though you’re armed and dangerous?”  
  
“They're pretty,” Steve admits. He leaves his tidying and goes down on one knee between Bucky’s cocked legs. “But they don't really got what I've been looking for.”  
  
“You got a sweetheart back home I should know about?” Bucky asks, reaching out to straighten a stray strand of Steve’s hair. “No that you don’t look pretty as a picture and good enough to eat, but I don’t want to make some poor gal cry into her pillow.”  
  
Slowly, deliberately, Steve pulls the towel off Bucky. He looks Bucky up and down, and it's strange to see it up close, that hunger – a little lust, a lot of fondness, with all of Steve’s earnest intensity squared up behind it. It’s like a blow to his sternum.  
  
“Not gals back home,” Steve says. “No one’s going to be crying over me.”  
  
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Bucky says haltingly, because his heart’s suddenly in his throat. He’s always been bad at denying himself, so he follows up his self-doubt by putting a fist in Steve’s hair and kissing him until they’re both hard and breathing shallow.  
  
“Not making a strong argument,” Steve observes. He frames Bucky’s torso with his big arms and leans in, kissing down Bucky’s neck in the exact same way Bucky likes to do with a gal. The idea of Steve watching him put moves on a date makes his gut clench, uncomfortable and arousing, because a hundred times out of a hundred options, Bucky knows even back home he would have picked Steve if he’d known that'd been on the table.  
  
“I never was as good with my tongue as you,” Bucky says, and pulls at him. Bucky’s not a small man, but Steve moves him like he’s nothing but a bag full of air, pushing him down onto the bed. His big warm body crushed up against Bucky’s feels incredible, and Bucky puts his hands over Steve’s heart because he still can't quite believe it. “God, Stevie.”  
  
“You smell good,” Steve murmurs at the hollow of Bucky’s throat, and it has the tone and weight of a confession, making Bucky's heart race when he continues, “I went back to our place the first night I had leave and they’d already packed up most of our stuff, but your bed was still there and I climbed in it and slept. I never knew before that just how good you always smelled.”  
  
“Does it feel different?” Bucky asks, raking his blunt nails down Steve's back and watching him shudder. “You get super senses as a package deal?”  
  
“It was real bad at first. I could barely stand it sometimes for the first few weeks, feeling all that,” Steve says. He catches Bucky’s hand in his and plants a kiss in the center of Bucky’s palm, then butts his head into it like a big cat. “It's still like putting my hand on a live wire sometimes.”  
  
Bucky could lie here all afternoon with Steve’s body blanketing his, but Steve’s got roving hands, and when he bites down on the slope of Bucky’s pectoral, pleasure rockets up through his insides. He’s all shook up over this, so he pulls at Steve’s uniform with a soft noise of protest. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”  
  
Obliging, Steve strips down, and Bucky tucks one arm under his head to watch the show. Steve’s muscles stretch and flex and the more of him that’s exposed, the hotter the air seems to be, until the heat in Bucky’s belly grows and washes over him like a wave breaking against the shore.  
  
Steve pauses and looks up at Bucky.  
  
“Stupid to feel shy,” Steve says, hand on his belt. “After all these years.” He pulls at the buckle, looking down, and Bucky wants to take Steve’s face in his hands and kiss that doubt away. “You sure you even like me like this? It ain’t weird?”  
  
“A little weird, sure,” Bucky says. “I liked you then, I like you now. Just because you got all tall and muscle-bound don’t mean that lump of grey matter sitting in your brainpan has a lick more sense.” He raises his eyebrows meaningfully. “Just means there’s more of your ass to pull out of the fire, is all.”  
  
Steve snorts and slides out of the rest of his clothes, standing between Bucky’s splayed legs as naked as the day he was born. He’s a fucking specimen, and as much as Bucky knows he’s gonna miss tucking Steve right under his arm and laughing all the way home from the bar, he’s not so attached to the thing Steve hated the most about himself to not appreciate the current situation.  
  
“You said something earlier,” Steve says, one knee on the bed. He licks his lips. All Bucky can do is stare at him, enraptured. “I mean, it was before you knew it was me, so you coulda just been talking in the heat of the moment –”  
  
Bucky interrupts, before Steve can get carried away, “What do you want me to do?”  
  
“Can I do you, Buck?” Steve cups Bucky’s face with his hand. “I wanna make you feel good, too.”  
  
“God, sure, Stevie, anything you want,” Bucky says. “But we’ll need a little slick if you wanna get that monster anywhere near me.”  
  
Steve reaches down below the bed and fishes around in his trouser pocket. He comes up with a little jar of petroleum jelly. “I pinched some from the infirmary.”  
  
“Steve Rogers,” Bucky laughs, tipping his head back, warm all the way through. “I leave you alone and you’ve resorted to petty theft and getting your dick sucked by strange men.”  
  
“Shut up, you jerk,” Steve says, and tumbles down onto Bucky, bright-eyed and hands reaching everywhere, like he can’t get enough. “God, I missed you, Buck.”  
  
“Don’t get all soft on me now, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, and pulls Steve down by his hair to plant a line of kisses just under his jaw. He still smells the same, like clean skin and home, and Bucky closes his eyes to take it in. Even if he has to go right back off to war, Bucky will carry the memory with him, this glow of heat and the searing, appreciative way Steve runs his hands up Bucky’s rib cage.  
  
“Don’t think that’s a risk,” Steve says, and shifts so his erection is trapped against Bucky’s thigh. He gives his hips a little rock and Bucky rises to meet him. Steve closes his mouth over the slope of Bucky’s shoulder and sucks, then says against his damp skin, “I wanna try something, unless you got other plans for me.”  
  
Bucky draws fluttery little breath, feeling like he can’t get his lungs to work quite right. “Steve Rogers, you ain’t never been something I could plan for.”  
  
“Turn over,” Steve murmurs against Bucky’s skin, and Bucky can feel Steve smiling. His hands are on Bucky’s hips, encouraging. “You were so good to me Buck, even when you didn't know it was me.”  
  
Bucky settles onto his stomach, shivering at the gentle praise, and the humid way Steve’s mouth drifts down the length of his spine. Steve drops little kisses on Bucky’s shower-warmed skin, eliciting soft, involuntary sounds of pleasure as he gets lower. When he reaches the base of Bucky’s spine, a burst of anticipatory pleasure over takes Bucky, and he groans into the crook of his elbow. “Steve, what are you doing?”  
  
Strong fingers spread him apart, and Bucky’s glad for having showered, because Steve gives the sensitive pucker of Bucky’s ass an experimental lick. Bucky shudders from head to toe, the thrill of it close to how he felt pulling the pin on his first live grenade. Steve laps at him again, and Bucky’s voice cracks on a desperate, “ _Steve_ ” when the muscular tip of Steve’s tongue pushes into his body.  
  
It's not like anything Bucky’s ever felt before, like he’s grabbed ahold of something sharp and wonderful and it's filling him full of a strange, electric desire. Steve’s faint stubble rasps deliciously against the most intimate parts of him, gentle at first, and then with increasing fervor, until Bucky is panting into the sheets, begging for Steve to touch him, to fuck him, to do _anything_ , but Steve doesn't relent until Bucky’s soaked and loose enough that when he pushes his thick index finger in that Bucky’s body accepts it willingly.  
  
“I wish you could see,” Steve says, hoarse but earnest, and just the sound of his voice makes Bucky feel good all over. If he could catch it, like the sound of an ocean in the curve of a conch, he’d never want to stop listening. “God, _Buck_ , what have we been doing?”  
  
“Wasting time,” Bucky says, impatient to feel him, tingling from the base of his skull right down to the crack of his ass. “Like you’re hell-bent on doing now. C’mon Steve, give it to me?”  
  
“Not yet,” Steve says, and bends his head again, this time to torment the curve of Bucky’s balls. His mouth is hot as a gun barrel, and it's always been twice as dangerous. “You don't let me take my time, you might land back in the infirmary.”  
  
“Where’d you learn so much about sodomy, Stevie?” Bucky asks, closing his eyes as Steve runs the pad of his index finger along the inside of Bucky’s sensitive ass.  
  
“Eavesdropping,” Steve says very seriously, without a hint of self-consciousness, and Bucky can only imagine Steve, hard as a rock and grappling with his newly minted nervous system, listening to the dancing girls talking about getting a cock up the rear. Steve must feel it’s necessary to clarify, because follows by clearing his throat. “Not on purpose, I mean.”  
  
“Christ, Stevie, how’d you last?” Bucky manages, because Bucky's been feeling pretty unloved himself and he’s not got some supercharged science fiction picture-show-perfect Adonis body.  
  
The scrape of the little metal lid of the Vaseline jar makes Bucky turn his head. Steve is kneeling between his legs, bent close, his expression half wonder, half concentration. The petroleum jelly is cold at first, but the friction of Steve’s skin inside him warms it quickly enough, and it’s only a minute before he’s pushing a second finger in beside the first, working Bucky’s body open. “Made do with my hands.”  
  
“Tell me?” Bucky asks. “What’d you think of?”  
  
“Mostly about you.” Steve sinks his teeth into the globe of Bucky’s ass, less gentle, and Bucky jerks his hips. A damp kiss lands on his tailbone, and Bucky nearly comes off the bed when Steve’s fingers brush a spot that makes warmth radiate all the way up Bucky’s torso. Steve pushes him back down and says, “Thought about how you used to go dancing with all them gals and come home worked up and looking like you’d run ten miles – and how I always wanted to just pull you down and feel you.”  
  
The heat comes again, and then again and again, until Bucky is squirming under the slow, deliberate strokes. A third finger joins the first two, careful and patient, and it don’t outright hurt like Bucky expected it to, just a tight, uncomfortable stretch that gradually, very gradually, gives way into bone-melting pleasure. When Steve’s buried in him up to his third knuckle, palm flat against Bucky’s body, Bucky is helpless and panting, vision blurry with the immense sensation.  
  
Bucky manages to get his elbow under himself, levering up to look over his shoulder. “I swear, Private, if you don’t get to work right this second I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands.”  
  
A grin spreads across Steve’s face. He plants his knees to either side of Bucky’s ass and leans over, pushing Bucky back down into the bed. “I’ve got the situation under control _Sergeant_.” He withdraws from Bucky’s body, leaving him feeling a little hollowed out, aching, but then pushes his cock right up against the slippery ring of muscle, teasing.  
  
“Jesus, Stevie, that gonna fit?” Bucky asks, shifting restlessly. He’s painfully hard, stretched open, slick as can be, but Steve’s cock is as hefty as is it is tempting. “God, don’t listen to me, I wanna try anyway.”  
  
Steve leans over him, planting a kiss on the nape of Bucky’s neck that makes him shiver from stem to stern. His breath stirs Bucky’s hair. “Tell me if it don’t?”  
  
It seems like it’ll be impossible at first, just riding the edge of pain, but Steve holds on to him and pushes – and then he’s in and Bucky has to bite his fist to keep from crying out. He feels like if Steve moves he might split apart from it, but Steve has him, Steve’s always had him, and when Steve rocks his hips, his cock rolls right across that sugar-sweet spot inside Bucky’s body.  
  
“God, Stevie,” Bucky says, head sagging between his shoulders. “God, you’re gonna bust me open. You feel so fucking good.”  
  
Steve rolls his hips, big and powerful, and Bucky feels like he’s gonna end up straight through the bed. He goes careful at first, slow and thick, and the way he moves makes it feel like honey’s dripping down Bucky’s spine. His breath is hot on Bucky’s back, his hands everywhere, his body powerful as life itself right up against Bucky’s, holding them together.  
  
“Buck, you can’t imagine,” Steve says, finally breathless, and it ain’t from the exertion, because he makes every motion look effortless now, like whatever they gave him cleared away every barrier he ever had to being himself. “Buck. Oh, God. I can hardly believe it.”  
  
Steve bows his head and rests it between Bucky’s shoulders, and just like Bucky used to wrap himself around Steve, except now Bucky’s the crooked letter inside Steve’s parenthesis. Bucky’s the one all torn down on the inside, full of bombs and blood and a sort of raw desperation. But Steve filling him up feels good, so good, makes him feel clean and soft and like he could go home and love someone with his hands again. When Steve gets his hand around Bucky’s cock, he goes off like he ain’t never been with anyone before, like the whole world is brand new and raw, because Steve’s touching him everywhere all at once.  
  
“Steve,” he’s saying, half incoherent. “Stevie, Stevie, fuck, I need you.”  
  
“I’m here, Buck,” Steve says, rolling Bucky onto his side, buried into him, fucking him nice and slow until Steve’s shuddering through his own release, their legs and arms all tangled up and Bucky doesn’t know which way is up or where Steve ends and he begins. It feels like Steve’s heart is beating in Bucky’s chest, and Bucky leans back against the broad heat of him; Steve holds him by the throat, turns his chin for a long, slow kiss, tongues sliding together wet and filthy and perfect.  
  
When the frenzy of it fades, there’s no room for Bucky to be afraid of anything, because Steve is there like he’s always been. Just the two of them, living wrapped around each other even when they ought not to have been. Here in this narrow bed with the hard mattress and the sound of Steve’s even, easy breathing, the war might as well not exist, and when Steve eases them apart, Bucky aches with it.  
  
Bucky turns and burrows into Steve’s arms, his ear pressed to Steve’s chest. His heart is like distant bombs dropping, _thud, thud, thud_ , and his lungs like bellows. Sometimes, back in Brooklyn, Bucky would curl up with Steve when the winter got them too much in its grip, and every shallow breath Steve took felt like the end of the world, like if it was Steve’s last then Bucky might stop breathing too.  
  
“What are you gonna do now?” Bucky asks, breaking the tender silence. He’s in the wind, but Steve is rock solid all the way down, bedrock to his marrow. The world’s been passing Steve Rogers over because they couldn’t see the fight in him down below those narrow, bird-winged shoulder blades and his rattling cough, but now the Army’s done built him up into a dime novel hero, a real ten cent commando, and they’re gonna take notice.  
  
Steve runs his thumb along Bucky’s lower lip. “I’m gonna kiss you at least a dozen more times, Bucky Barnes,” he says, “and then I swear on my ma’s grave I'm gonna win this damn war.”  
  
“Not all by your own damn self,” Bucky says. He drags himself up and kisses Steve good and solid. Steve’s mouth opens and it’s like a whole world that Bucky never let himself imagine. “You’re always trying to go off and be a hero without me.”  
  
A smile tugs the corner of Steve’s mouth. “Feeling left out, Buck?”  
  
“Fuck you, Stevie,” Bucky says, and goes for bowling him over. They tussle a little, Steve and his impossibly strong arms coming around Bucky and pinning him down just like Bucky used to hold Steve. His bare body sticks to Steve’s, and Bucky greedily reaches for all the bare skin he can hold. Softer, face pressed against Steve’s chest, he says, “Fuck you, I ain’t letting you go off and die without me.”  
  
“I’m working on getting out on the front,” Steve says, sifting his fingers through Bucky’s short hair. “A good man put his life down for me to be able to hold a car over my head and I don’t intend to spend the rest of the war dancing like a circus animal on a stage.”  
  
Bucky kisses him viciously for that, and Steve melts into it, holding Bucky tight enough it feels like his fingertips might leave bruises; Bucky hopes they do. He wants to wear them under his uniform, carry them along with them until he can wind himself up in Steve again and let Steve take him all over. The war might have planted roots in Bucky’s chest, but his gun’s always been loaded for Steve Rogers, even before he was smart enough to know how much trouble that meant. “Stevie, Christ, I didn’t think I was gonna see you again.”  
  
“I know. I got your letters,” Steve says. His big hands hold Bucky steady. “I thought about you every day. I’m here now.”  
  
The way Steve is looking at him clutches at his guts and he can’t quite stand it, so he sprawls across Steve, just drinking it in, trying to memorize the way Steve smells, just in case. Footsteps pass in the hallway and then he can hear the quiet call for evening mess. He’s too tired and pleased to budge, not even for food.  
  
“You know, you should really report.” Steve pushes himself up on his elbow, disturbing Bucky’s doze. He looks just about perfect, except for the way his hair is mussed. “They’re gonna ask where you’ve been.”  
  
Bucky grumbles, curling tighter against Steve, “You’re not even a real Captain. I ain’t gotta take orders from you.”  
  
He can feel Steve, big as a mountain, shaking with silent laughter and it don’t bother him any at all.


End file.
